Mrs. Dred Scott

A Life on Slavery's Frontier

Lea VanderVelde

As it is the first serious consideration of all of the litigants involved in the Dred Scott Trial, this book sheds new and provocative light on the forces leading up to and driving the infamous Supreme Court case

Parses a wealth of original historical records to provide not just the story of Harriet Scott, but also a sweeping and intimate look at antebellum life--providing a new model for investigating and writing social history

Compelling study of women's daily life and work, both on the frontier and in the city and of slaves and slave-holding classes, that reveals the ways in which women exercised power and influence in public life

Mrs. Dred Scott

A Life on Slavery's Frontier

Lea VanderVelde

Description

Among the most infamous U.S. Supreme Court decisions is Dred Scott v. Sandford . Despite the case's signal importance as a turning point in America's history, the lives of the slave litigants have receded to the margins of the record, as conventional accounts have focused on the case's judges and lawyers. In telling the life of Harriet, Dred's wife and co-litigant in the case, this book provides a compensatory history to the generations of work that missed key sources only recently brought to light. Moreover, it gives insight into the reasons and ways that slaves used the courts to establish their freedom. A remarkable piece of historical detective work, Mrs. Dred Scott chronicles Harriet's life from her adolescence on the 1830s Minnesota-Wisconsin frontier, to slavery-era St. Louis, through the eleven years of legal wrangling that ended with the high court's notorious decision. The book not only recovers her story, but also reveals that Harriet may well have been the lynchpin in this pivotal episode in American legal history. Reconstructing Harriet Scott's life through innovative readings of journals, military records, court dockets, and even frontier store ledgers, VanderVelde offers a stunningly detailed account that is at once a rich portrait of slave life, an engrossing legal drama, and a provocative reassessment of a central event in U.S. constitutional history. More than a biography, the book is a deep social history that freshly illuminates some of the major issues confronting antebellum America, including the status of women, slaves, Free Blacks, and Native Americans.

Mrs. Dred Scott

A Life on Slavery's Frontier

Lea VanderVelde

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Wife of a Celebrity2. 1835: Arriving on the Frontier3. Settling In4. Entertaining Guests at the Indian Agency5. Late Summer Harvest6. Wintering Over at St. Peter's Agency7. Winters Deep8. The Change of the Guard9. Celestial Explorers10. The Call of the Wood as a Prelude to Treaty11. A Treaty Made before Her Eyes12. The Master Departs, Together Alone13. Traveling the Length of the River14. New Baby in a New Land15. The Deteriorating Community16. Battles and Baptisms17. Taliaferro's Last Stand18. Leaving Minnesota Trying Courts: The Justice of Frontier Trials19. While the Doctor was Away: St. Louis, 1840-4320. The House of Chouteau21. Black Social Life of St. Louis22. The Doctor Returns23. 1843 Interlude: Jeff Barracks between Wars of National Expansion24. Harriet and Her Children in St. Louis25. The Courthouse and the Jail26. Other Matters at the Courthouse27. Filing Suit Again28. Trial by Pestilence, Trial by Fire29. Declared Free30. Missouri Changes its Course31. Before the High Court

Mrs. Dred Scott

A Life on Slavery's Frontier

Lea VanderVelde

Author Information

Lea VanderVelde is Josephine Witte Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.